Twitter in talks with banks on credit facility: Sources

Twitter is in talks with a handful of investment banks to provide the company with a credit facility as it embarks upon being a public company, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move is customary ahead of an IPO for startups, which rarely have access—or desire—to build up debt while trying to grow their business. Facebook, for instance, secured access to $8 billion in credit in March 2012—and added 25 underwriters in the process—two months before going public.

Twitter did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Goldman Sachs—the company's lead underwriter on its IPO—will participate in the deal, according to the people familiar with the matter, as well as a handful of other banks including Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, among others.

The size and terms of the line of credit could not be learned, as people familiar with the matter cautioned that talks were still "fluid."

It's expected that, by participating in the credit syndicate, the additional banks will win an underwriting spot on Twitter's IPO. The full list of banks as well as the company's capital structure, valuation, and earnings will be disclosed in a formal S-1 filing to be made at least three weeks before the company meets investors.

On September 12, Twitter announced in a tweet it had filed confidentially for an IPO with the SEC. The filing is likely to have been made several weeks prior to the Tweet, these people said, which would suggest the company has had an advanced dialogue over its application and could go public as early as November.